This is the official thread for the Wetpixel Whaleshark Expedition to Isla Mujeres. Open to all to contribute. I'll also try and add something each day.

I've arrived in Mexico for the Wetpixel whaleshark bonanza (hopefully). That starts tomorrow. And signs are good too - it has been a great season for sharks so far (as anyone on Facebook can tell you) - and we met a group of German photographers at the Cenotes yesterday who had just come from Isla Mujeres with tales of great viz and hundreds of sharks every day last week. It is exciting.

Anyway, a few of us (me, Eleonora, Suzy and Mike) are down here early for a couple of days of cenote diving with Dive Aventuras, thanks to Mario for guiding us. For me it is just a recce trip - to better understand the diving here. I don't yet have my main dome port, nor any remote strobes - but the cenotes are really wonderful. I can't wait to come back here on a dedicated shoot.

On the first day we visited Chac Mool, which was amazing scenery and I liked all the freshwater creatures too:

Aargh - having internet connection problems... So this will be brief. Curious locals:

Sorry for the lack of updates. Lack of internet access while travelling.

Day Two saw me, Eleo, Suzy and Mike diving again in the Cenotes with Mario from Dive Aventuras. It was a chance to play with the light beams in the Taj-Mahal cenote and then head to Eden, which turned into a fish-fest! Although Eleo and I had to share the only macro lens we brought.

Below are some shots of the light beams, taken with Nikon D4 and Sigma 15mm, Nauticam housing and tripod.

I like this one because of the refraction in the rays, I'll be using this in all my talks about dome ports from now on!

Then off to Eden - which was amazing fro fish, but I was stuck on wide angle. I really liked it though - there were so many cichlids with babies. I love freshwater fish because their life cycles are so different to marine one.

Alex - fish sucker

Cave at Eden.

Cichlids with babies:

More cichlids with babies (taken with 60mm, when Eleo lent me her camera for a few mins:

In the evening we headed up to Isla Mujeres and met up with the group, who are:Alex, Eleo, Neil, Catherine, Mike, Suzy, April, Tom, Ryan, Carlos, Brian, Catherine and Jaxie. Hopefully some of them will be posting their thoughts and more importantly images here soon.

The days just keep getting better - more and more sharks. Yesterday they were so dense in the morning that you couldn't focus on shooting one as another would run you down from the opposite direction.

I was in the water and had about 25 sharks around me in an area of a couple of tennis courts. The whole water surface was churned up with whalesharks. There was more water than sharks. Would have been amazing from the air - hard to capture from the water as a still video - only three sharks in this dull shot:

We've had amazing days all week and with hours and hours with the sharks ideas are quickly exhausted. Many people have been trying split levels, despite it being slightly choppy - and not ideal conditions - in the middle of the day. But the struggle is not getting the split, but having anything of interest in the above portion of the images. There are no clouds and the only above water subject matter are the boats. So still not found a decent wildlife image as a split:

It is nice and calm in the mornings, but then there is too much light difference between above and below to get a shot right in camera. Of course it is easily fixed in Photoshop. But when you have whalesharks on tap - it is too tempting to want to get it right in camera.

With 100s of passes each day you do struggle to do anything different after a while. And I know that when people do find a fresher image they may not share it online because they are reasonably easy to copy! I have been enjoying the topside shooting too, especially as one of our boats has a tall tuna tower, giving the options of very high or low shots.

Suzy brought a kite to fly her GoPro, but it just hasn't been windy enough. Which is ironic with the storm Ernesto possibly heading this way. Yes, we're watching the storm track as avidly as the sharks. Not a big storm at all (yet), but a direct pass would spoil a day or two of whalesharking. Fingers crossed for a change in route.

Alex - is there any thought that some of these whale sharks might have stayed in the Gulf, if the Gulf was the same as before BP? I have no opinion one way or another, beyond curiosity. Just wondering if scientific community has weighed in on why numbers of whale sharks are so high, and localized.

Alex - is there any thought that some of these whale sharks might have stayed in the Gulf, if the Gulf was the same as before BP? I have no opinion one way or another, beyond curiosity. Just wondering if scientific community has weighed in on why numbers of whale sharks are so high, and localized.

Steve; I don't believe this is a new phenomenon, rather just a more recent discovery, at least for the photog community. My understanding this is purely related to the bonito spawning in this area at this time of year. I guess it is possible though that food is more sparse elsewhere than before so they are tending to concentrate more. Be tough to assess without historical data of previous aggregations.

I would agree; nothing has really changed in the Whale Shark migration, we just didn't know about it . Apparently scientists have been studying the Holbox/Isla Mujeres migration for about 10 years, but Mexican fisherman have known about it for decades. Since it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere, it's not surprising nobody knew it was an annual occurrence.

We went last year and it's one of the coolest things I've ever done. Definitely a bucket list item. Do it before the Mexican Government bans it or starts charging tax on each Whale Shark or something.

We should just be glad it's not in American waters, it would probably be a Disneyland ride by now and you would have to rent saddles. Heh....